Coinbase Brings Cardano and Litecoin to Base, Joining DOGE and XRP

American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase unveiled two new wrapped assets on Wednesday, making Cardano and Litecoin tradable on Base, the firm’s Ethereum layer-2 network. 

Cardano (ADA) and Litecoin (LTC), now available as cbADA and cbLTC, join Dogecoin (DOGE), the Ripple-linked XRP, and Bitcoin (BTC) in Coinbase’s wrapped assets suite, a collection of tokens designed to increase cross-chain functionality. The wrapped versions of DOGE and XRP were just launched on Base earlier this month.

Held in a 1:1 reserve with the native tokens, Coinbase wrapped assets are always redeemable for their respective underlying token. In other words, a user holding ADA on Coinbase can at any time seamlessly swap to cbADA and use it on Base, or swap from cbADA on Base to ADA, the native Cardano token.

This makes it easier for holders of Cardano or Litecoin to make use of Ethereum’s more robust decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, giving users the opportunity to interact with popular Ethereum-based protocols like Aave, Compound, and Curve. 

Since introducing the newest wrapped assets on Wednesday, around $2.5 million in LTC and ADA have been wrapped in total, including approximately $1.6 million in cbADA and $950,000 in cbLTC, according to their respective proof-of-reserves pages. 

The firm’s largest wrapped asset, cbBTC was first introduced last September to help make Bitcoin more accessible in Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem. It’s an alternative to Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), a popular Ethereum token that is widely used by traders.

It now holds more than 45,000 Bitcoin in reserve for its cbBTC product, or just under $5 billion worth based on today’s Bitcoin price.

Asked how Coinbase decides which wrapped assets to bring to Base, a spokesperson told Decrypt that it considers factors such as "assets on platform, number of holders, trading volume for these assets, as well as the market cap and broader crypto ecosystem activity."

"To create an open global economy that increases economic freedom, we need to make it easy for anyone and any asset to come on-chain," the spokesperson said. "Crypto users want to unlock more utility and returns with their assets but struggle from the lack of cross-chain compatibility and limited access to DeFi, with many assets being confined to a specific blockchain."

"Wrapped assets remove a key point of friction by allowing customers to use more assets they already hold in new ways on-chain," they added, "including lending, borrowing and tapping into other novel DeFi use cases."

The new assets add to exchange’s product and service updates on the week, including Coinbase securing a MiCA license to improve and expand its services in Europe. In recent weeks, the firm also launched a Bitcoin rewards credit card and partnered with Shopify to improve stablecoin payments in retail. 

Shares of Coinbase (COIN) are up nearly 6% on the day and now more than 51% year-to-date as it approaches a potential all-time high closing price. Earlier this week, Benchmark analysts raised price targets on the stock, citing a “transformative week” of regulatory tailwinds and stablecoin adoption. 

Coinbase did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment regarding the new wrapped asset launches on Base.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to add comment from Coinbase.